Citizen Girl (26 page)

I shakily teeter back into the little room. Seconds later, he throws open the sailcloth. ‘Come on, let’s see! Oh, fabulous! Perfect!’

I tug at the minuscule triangles to try to cover something of my breasts. ‘Jeffrey, this is
work
. I’d really prefer a one-piece.’

‘Oh no, they don’t stock those.’ Jeffrey shudders as if I’ve requested a Victorian bathing costume. ‘It’s a
pool
party – loosen up! This is a winner!’

‘Do you have a sarong?’ I furtively ask the passing salesgirl. She looks to Jeffrey and he shakes his head. He whispers in her ear and she nods, taking his station in my cabana.

‘Honey, what’re ya gonna do about the bush?’

‘Excuse me?’ I ask, distracted with trying to keep my nipples covered.

‘Waxing, sweetie. Ya gotta wax.’

‘I am waxed.’ I cross my arms. ‘I have a boyfriend. I’m waxed.’

‘Honey, this isn’t Vermont.
Any
hair ruins the lines of the suit. People’ll be looking.’

After a second, chafing,
way
too up-close-and-personal visit with Jean-Claude, I’m directed to Tad, who’s waiting for me in the Porsche.

‘Hey,’ he says, shoving my three shopping bags in the back seat. ‘Hop in. Jeffrey had to run. Here’s our address.’

Tad tears a sheet from the dashboard notepad as we pull out of the parking lot. ‘Be there by seven.’ Absorbed by the traffic, he pumps up the nine speakers to clubbing decibels, Depeche Mode forcing me to fume silently all the way back to The Standard.

In the quiet refuge of my room, the techno base still throbs in my ears as I wriggle back into the suit, tugging it this way and that in front of my goose-bumped reflection.

Jesus, no. I am just naked. I am Cinemax-After-Darknaked.

I shut off the air and open the window wide, the rumble of Sunset Boulevard rolling over me with the humidity. Increasingly uncomfortable – with Jeffrey’s demands, my complicity, and mostly the irritating residue of hot wax – I pick up the phone and dial Chatsworth, counting on Grace to give me a one-sentence cyanide pill.

‘Yeeellllllooo.’

‘Jack, hey, it’s me. I’m in LA.’

‘I heard. Also heard you got a big fat fuckin’ raise.’

‘Language.’

‘Gonna buy me a car?’

‘Gonna learn how to drive?’ I lean out over the sill, the sun penetrating my chilled skin. ‘Okay, here’s the thing.’

‘Always a thing.’

I puff up my cheeks, blowing out the air as I try to decide which of the nineteen Things Wrong With This Picture I should mention first. ‘My boss, but not really, took me on this shopping trip, but ended up
stripping me down to a bikini for this work thing tonight.’

‘A swimming work thing?’

‘I guess.’

‘Well, if it’s a swimming work thing, you should be in a bikini.’

I look down at my copiously exposed breasts. ‘I just feel weird.’

‘You
are
weird.’

‘That’s helpful.’

‘Dude, you worry about everything.’

‘Not everything.’ I reach back inside the room to pull a cigarette from the emergency pack I copped in the lobby.

‘You thought you’d never get a job.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, lighting up.

‘And you got a job.’

‘So?’ I exhale, blowing a strong stream of smoke into the smog.

‘So, you’re in LA and I’m cleaning out drainpipes in the pissing rain. And there’s this man in the tower room writing a book about Chernobyl. And we can’t get through a meal over here without a little mutation talk. And if we’re really good he brings pictures.’

Smiling, ‘Point taken. Love you.’

‘Yeah. You need Mom?’

‘ … I don’t know …’ Reaching around, I smash the cigarette against the outside wall. ‘You’re right. I’m in LA, in a four-star hotel, with a celebrity haircut and a tan. It’s not the end of the world.’

‘Uh-huh. So you want to talk to her or not?’

‘No.’ I gaze out at the
Baywatch
billboard. ‘Just tell her I’m okay.’

The setting sun rapidly cooling the air, I step out of the taxi, straightening my Juicy terrycloth strapless mini-dress and folding my jacket over my arm. After a brief, but moving, memorial service for the ‘bikini’, I revisited the shopping bags with a fresh eye, pulling together the ‘perfect’ pool-party-work-thing story. My chandelier earrings swinging, I pass through Jeffrey’s neurotically symmetrical Zen garden, careful not to catch the heels of my new Sigerson Morrisons. A Thai gentleman in a white mandarin ensemble beckons me from the door and takes my jacket. ‘Welcome. You Girl? Friend of Mr Jeffrey and Mr Tad? Please, come in.’ I follow into the slate-tiled entryway, its interlocking slabs flowing uninterrupted through the glass-walled house and out to the crowded pool.

‘You change here?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Change now.’ He gestures to the powder room off the entryway.

‘Oh, no, thanks. I’m all set.’

His previously courteous tone insistent, ‘Please, wait heh.’ Left at the teak bench by the door, I rub my arms in the chilly hallway. Outside, space heaters are ensuring maximum skin exposure from the almost entirely male crowd, frolicking amidst the ubiquitous bamboo.

‘Girl!’ Tad’s voice echoes as he slides the patio door open, bossa nova beats momentarily reverberating in the
stone space. He shakes his head vigorously, droplets of water darkening the slate before he bounds over in a Gucci ball-hugger that highlights his role in Jeffrey’s household. ‘Hey, so, uh, where’s the suit?’

‘Yeah, it didn’t fit. It’s okay, I don’t plan on swimming.’

‘Okay, well, we’d really like you to. So, we’re just gonna get you another suit. Jeffrey’ll be here in a minute, so, uh, why don’t you pop a squat in… uh… here!’ He backs me into the teak powder room and hunkers in the doorway. ‘You look really hot with your hair that color.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, looking behind me and realizing the toilet lid is my seating option. ‘I really don’t need a suit.’

‘Lady, you champagne!’ The butler passes a flute over Tad’s shoulder, complete with a strawberry sliced onto the rim.

‘Thanks.’

‘You not allergic strawberry, ah you?’

‘No.’

‘Good, good.’ With the other hand he holds out several more of the small velvet pouches. ‘Mistah Jeffrey heh soon.’

Cornered against the toilet bowl I look to both entreating faces as they squarely block the doorway. ‘Gentlemen, I appreciate your interest in my comfort, but I swam at the hotel. I’m not swimming tonight,’ I say definitively, gauging if we’re on the verge of a smackdown.

His lank, sun-streaked hair draped like puppy ears around his face, Tad simply begs, ‘
Please
?’

‘Where’s my Girl!’

‘In here!’ At Jeffrey’s voice I squeeze between my captors back into the front hall as he glides in through the glass living-room door, clad in modest yellow Vilebrequin trunks. He tugs a young Sharon Osbourne manqué along on his arm, the mellifluous sounds of Dean Martin crooning in behind them. ‘Here’s someone I’m
dying
for you to meet,’ he calls as the mid-thirties-ish woman eagerly frees herself and alights on a passing server.

‘Hey, you, with the crabby things!’ Her Manchester accent ricochets off the stone as she unabashedly loads up her mendhied palm.

Jeffrey’s face curdles as he takes in my suitless self. ‘Girl, this is Kat, president and co-founder of Bovary, Inc.’ He pulls her attention from the hors-d’oeuvres as I try to recall any reference point.
BovaryBovaryBovary?
‘Kat, meet Girl, the feminist backbone of MC, Inc.’

‘Well, it’s about time.’ Kat’s face lights up beneath her electric-red pixie bangs as she continues, saving me from having my ignorance revealed. ‘I was starting to think all that crap you’ve been shoveling about a female face was just that – crap.’ Jeffrey looks tense until she breaks into hearty laughter. Nervously, he joins in a second later. Okay, clearly it doesn’t behoove him to have the ‘feminist backbone’ exposed as knowing diddly. Her chuckles subside as she smiles warmly at me. ‘I love this dress. You look enchanting.’ She darts her index finger under the elastic smocking between my breasts – eek!

‘Yes, Girl has a great eye,’ Jeffrey coos.

The butler retreats, followed by, ‘I’ll be out there if you need me …’ Tad points where wet male bodies undulate in the glow of the tiki torches.

‘Yes, go,’ Jeffrey excuses him.

‘I’ll come with you! I haven’t made it out to the pool yet.’ I step after him, but Jeffrey slides his arm around my waist. This is not good.

Kat chews enthusiastically. ‘Have you tried these?’ She swallows. ‘They’re fucking brilliant. Dead sinful, but brilliant.’ She winks, wiping her fingers on her camouflage-print capris.

‘Oh, no, dive in! They’re baked with low-fat tartar,’ Jeffrey chimes, prompting me with an eyebrow.

‘Yes, I haven’t tried those yet —’

‘Oh, good God, well, let’s get him back!’ Kat exclaims. ‘Better yet, let’s stake out the kitchen.’

Jeffrey nabs a server to request a fresh tray of crab cakes as Kat lowers her voice to a throaty, conspiratorial timbre, ‘My girlfriend and I, we just checked out the library – not many books, but enough naughty boy tapes to open their own shop.’ She licks her shiny fingers, her nose ring sparkling ‘fuck’ in tiny diamanté letters. ‘So, Bovary – what’re your thoughts?’

‘My thoughts …’ Jeffrey, his attention returned, squeezes my side. Anyone?
An-y-one!
Jeffrey breaths on my neck unhelpfully. ‘I… I’m a… a firm believer in the female-run organization.’ She nods. ‘It’s the very essence of feminism in action.’

‘Yes!’ she chimes. Jeffrey squeezes again.

‘Female management is the key to change,’ I eye her
matching camouflage bikini top. ‘As long as it’s done in style, of course.’

‘She’s fab! Jeffrey, you’re spot on – she does have the Bovary look.’

‘
And
she thinks your brand expansion from bedroom to poolside is genius! She picked up one of your suits this afternoon at Segal’s – loved it.’

I’m remotely aware of Jeffrey twittering as the hairs on my neck stand on end.

‘Loved it?’ Kat asks, holding my gaze.

‘Loved it,’ Jeffrey answers in his sing-song.

‘And I
love
this.’ Laughing, she points at two Adonises tussling atop their friends’ shoulders in the pool. ‘
I love LA!
’ she sings, stretching her arms wide as she spins to the windows. ‘The board wants US headquarters in New York – you know, fashion capital, quick hop over the pond, and I’m like, fuck no. I want sunshine! I want palm trees! I want
movie stars
fucking in my knickers!
My
bras hanging over the bar at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go. I want a starlet found
dead
of an OD with
my
slip up over her head. Glamour, baby.’ No, Mom, you had it all wrong. I’m not Ann Coulter. I’m her panties.

‘Hate to eat and run, but we have that blasted thing in the Valley.’ Kat motions a finger to her throat. ‘Darling, a pleasure! What’s your size?’

‘Small, of course,’ Jeffrey says, giving my waist one final squeeze that threatens to bring up my lunch.

‘Fab – I’ll have a bunch of samples sent to your hotel. See you in the bright and early!’ She swivels my numb face to plant glossy kisses on both sides.

‘Come along, Girl, your car’s here, too.’

‘I need to find Guy.’

‘Let’s get Kat to her car and then I’m all yours.’

Glowering in the dark, I wipe away her lipstick imprint with the back of my hand. The gravel crunches beneath our feet, mixing with the grating chirp of cicadas. Kat slides into a town car, nestling herself beside a slumped platinum blonde who limply flutters her fingers at Jeffrey. ‘Bye, darlings,’ Kat calls, pulling the door shut.

The car rolls away down the drive, Jeffrey flagging the next one in line as the butler approaches with my things. ‘She’s such a spark plug,’ he smiles to himself.

‘Why didn’t you give me a heads-up on this?’ I demand, tugging on my jacket.

‘Oh, didn’t I?’

‘
No!
No, you didn’t!’ I’m getting that speaking-Martian feeling.

‘Oh. Well, I’m sure I must have mentioned something.’

‘Fuck, Jeffrey.’ I feel the blood flood back into my face. ‘Putting aside what that woman even does – that was
completely
unprofessional! This is a job. I work for My Company, Incorporated.
They
pay me to think and execute – which requires the necessary preparation – preparation which has nothing at all to do with my pubic hair!’

He sucks in his cheeks in distaste. ‘Your pubic hair is absolutely in my purview, little miss. This is working. Not shuffling pathetic little grants around to save the whales. Success takes every hour and every inch. All of you. You think I’m throwing this party for my own amusement? You think I wouldn’t rather drape myself in velour and
drink beer and get fat in front of the TV?’ He sniffs. ‘In the real world you work twenty-four-seven and you use everything you’ve got.’

‘Maybe your working isn’t my working.’

‘Obviously.’

‘I need to talk to Guy.’ I stride past him back towards the house.

‘Anything you have to say to him you should say to me.’

‘No, Jeffrey. It’s between me and Guy.’

‘And I’m telling you, anything you have to say to him you might as well say to me.’

I turn to his faceless silhouette, backlit in the headlights. ‘
He
hired me.’

‘He wasn’t even invited tonight.’ Moving out of the car beams, Jeffrey stares me down.

‘Fine. I quit.’

‘No, you don’t,’ he laughs.

‘Yes, I do.’ Marching back, I reach around him to pull the car door open. ‘However “normal” this all is,’ I wave my free hand back in the direction of the borderline orgy in his pool, ‘I quit.’

‘No. You don’t.’ He shuts the door, the force snapping the handle hard against my fingers. ‘Look, that makeover, from which you’re obviously having some sort of posttraumatic episode, was a one-time deal. You had an edge. It needed to be softened. Kat, for your information, is the Paul Newman of intimates. Bovary’s the second biggest fundraiser in the UK behind the Princess Trust. They’ve given millions of pounds to women’s homes, political
refugees, the cancers —’ Tad thumps down the gravel, clutching a thick black dossier across his torso like Adam’s leaf.